House Tour – My Living Room

I use to describe my home decor style between ‘traditional’ and ‘wood-cabin’. I loved the deep woods and comfy leather couches. But, lately, I also started to love the gold and white of modern design. Then I discovered Ballard Designs, which is described as ‘European-style’, but to me it’s the epitome of classic southern style. Every time I go to their website I want to buy absolutely everything. Of course, I don’t quite have the budget to shop there, yet. I like to consider this my ‘forever home’ store. Meaning that when I move into my forever home, I’ll furnish it completely with Ballard (can you tell, I also plan on being super rich when I grow up??). So, in the meantime I found a way to have a Ballard-inspired living room at a fraction of the cost. Keep reading to see how and where you can find the dups!

One of my passions, and creative outlooks, is home furnishings. I love going online and finding amazing pieces and rooms that I want to mimic. Sadly, when it comes to finally putting stuff together, I fall short and my creativity starts to dwindle. So I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a copier and I need other people to tell me exactly where to put things. The first step is being honest with yourself, right?

Anyways, with this I turned to my favorite home decor and furniture store, Ballard Designs. I was instantly on the hunt for dups to their amazing furniture but decided to splurge on a couple of things, mainly pillows. I should probably disclose beforehand that Amazon didn’t sponsor this post… but they are the greatest store ever and have everything humanly possible. You’ll see why, keep reading.

Step 1: Get a new rug

We moved into a town home with all hardwood floors and needed some cheap rugs to get us by. So the shag 8X10 rug that I bought from Costco for $80 was just perfect… until I got a dog. Turns out that shag carpet mimics the feel of grass, to a puppy, and they get confused and pee on it :/ Once Chloe became house broken, she started hiding food in the carpet… All in all, this carpet was disgusting and it was time for an upgrade. Luckily, I found the perfect rug at Ballard, but it was $800. According to my mom, a true adult, most rugs cost around $1,500 so this was actually a good price… but I wasn’t in the market to spend that much on a rug. Luckily, since I knew I wanted the dark blue, white, and gold color scheme, I was able to go on Amazon and find a good alternative.

Ballard Designs $800                                                                        Amazon $180

Other options blue and white rugs, if these aren’t quite your style:

Step 2: Design the Wall

One issue that I’ve been having while decorating the townhome is the HUGE walls. There is so much square footage on the walls idk what do to with it all. My original plan was to have a short bookshelf with mirrors on top. But this became a challenge when I put up the mirror wall in the entry way (checkout that blog post, here) and the giant mirror in the dining room. Overall, it was getting to be too many mirror even for me. So I decided to fulfill my dream of having a gold bookcase.

The inspiration for the bookshelf is below and it’s just under $3,000 (not including the books but including the other jars and decor). My goal was to literally copy this design any way that I could and maybe add a few pictures.

Somehow I was able to find multiple dups on Amazon. For the ones that I got (here), the comments even said that they looked just like the ones from Ballard Designs #score. Just the bookshelf alone from Ballard cost $2,400 and I was able to get all three pieces from Amazon for just under $600!

The 3 piece bookshelf that I used is here, but I know that everyone has different styles and room sizes so I found a couple other similar gold bookshelves that you can shop below:

One of my favorite things about my decor is that some of it is purchased in another country. I can always find similar versions online or on Amazon, but they are always more expensive.

Shop the Selves:

Top Shelf: White Candle | Wood Bowl | Wood Owl (similar) |

Middle Shelf 1: 8×10 Gold Photo Frame | Fake Succulent | Large Dark Blue Jar | Small Light Blue Jar | Small Blue Jar | Boxwood Plant |

Middle Shelf 2: Small Ball Topiary | Blue Wooden Santa (similar) | Wood Photo Frame | Gold Photo Frame| 

Bottom Shelf: Small Blue Candle | Blue and White Vase | Solid Gold Frame | 8×10 Gold Photo Frame |

I’m currently obsessed with the blue and white ginger jars so here a couple more options that I think are awesome:

Step 3: Couch/Pillows

When I bought a new rug, I thought for sure that I’d have to buy a new couch. Our current couch is taupe which is like a light brown. I originally fell in love with it because it didn’t have separate bottom cushions, and it’s always been perfect. It’s a dark tan color so it doesn’t show too much dirt and it goes with most colors. With the light rug, I thought this couch would completely clash but it actually looks really good with the new rug! Also, yay I get to save $2,000 and not buy a new couch!

Sadly, with a new puppy, who’s still trying to figure out how zippers work, I had to get new pillows. Chloe managed to completely destroy two pillows (really she just tore off the zippers and I didn’t have enough will power to be Martha Stewart and sew them back on). Also, pillows are the perfect way to add pops of color to a room that are easy to replace change out for each season.

Couch: Z Gallerie 

Love Seat: Z Gallerie 

Dark Blue Solid Pillow: Amazon (large)

Step 4: Get a Coffee Table

I was not excited to get a coffee table. But when we got Chloe she loved having a little play area in the living room and it breaks my heart every time I think about getting a coffee table. It’ll happen one day but that day is NOT today! When I do get a coffee table, I’m planning on getting a dark wood table, to tie in with the mantle.

Step 5: Mantle Accessories 

One of the main things that really ‘sold’ me on this house was the fire place. I love the stone and the thick brown, unfinished mantle. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the people who lived in the house before us had everything wired so we had to put the TV on top of the fireplace. I love the angle and I love having the TV be the focal point of the room. One thing that I had trouble with is all the cords, they were so hard to hide. So I went over to Half Price Books and found cheap books in the clearance section ($3 each!!).

| Gold Candlesticks | Gold Lantern | Floor Lamp | Gold Basket | Blue Pillows | Blue Blanket |

Step 6: Random Room Accessories 

Growing up, my parents always had fake plants around the house to add pops of greenery in the room. So when I picked the blue and gold color pallet I wanted to add bits of green to the bookshelves and the floor.

| Blue and White Planter | Plant | 

Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase using the links I provide. Thanks for your support!